The Maple Leaf

By Pete KJ

Personal mistakes. Shared redemption.

 

Troy and Vincent begin life together on the playground of Maple Leaf Elementary School. It's Seattle, the 1970s. Vincent is a white student from the neighborhood, while Troy is one of a few African American students bussed in as part of a desegregation program. Vincent quickly admires Troy and befriends him. They share childhood moments such as kickball games, discussions of first crushes, and after-school fishing trips—before their racist environment separates them.

 

As the decades go by, their lives take very different directions. Vincent finishes his time at Maple Leaf, then goes on to high school, college, an internship in London, and—for a time—a successful marriage and career. Troy, on the other hand, begins to suffer as soon as he's transferred to an elementary school in his own disadvantaged neighborhood. He becomes addicted to drugs in his teen years and cycles deeper and deeper into a life of violence and incarceration.

 

Interwoven throughout the two men's narratives are stories of Vincent's aunt, Shirley, and of a compassionate woman named Dolores Moffat, who struggles to find a meaningful place for herself in the world.

 

"KJ's novel follows two men across six decades—and across America's racial divide…He fully immerses readers in the characters' memories, as well as their healing processes." --Kirkus

 

"Captures the times and also moves past those times, giving the reader a strong sense of pain and possibility."  --Victoria Hanley, author of The Healer's Keep

 

"A thought-provoking look at recent history through the lens of a changing friendship." Indie Reader

 

FINALIST, 2015 NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARDS

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pete KJ
• Release date: May 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781386041993

Book preview

Part One: 1972

1.1

Northeast Seattle

March

HISSSSS

The doors of the yellow school bus closed as it pulled away and headed back to the Central District or wherever it went when it wasn’t bringing Troy and Kamal to and from the white neighborhood.

Ahead of Troy Dove, Kamal Torrey slid down the metal handrail of the cement stairs leading to the playground. Troy watched his brown ears disappear, and then reappear on the kickball field.

We get Kamal! We get Kamal! someone yelled.

Slow and bouncy, the next boy up to kick called to the pitcher.

Troy drew a deep breath and leveled his gaze. The red brick building gazed back. March sun glinted off tall white framed windows with manila shades pulled part way down.

He scanned the playground.

There she was. Down by the doors, Jena Green jumped rope with a group of girls. Today she wore her red and black plaid dress and blue jacket. Her golden brown pony tail bobbed in the air.

Jena, Jena, Jeh…na. Troy’s head swam dizzily and his legs felt rubbery.

Jena kept jumping. She didn’t look at the bus as it rolled away, didn’t look at Troy. She didn’t often look at Troy, but there was one time last year, in first grade, that he could never forget about. Her long look at him from across the classroom made his body go numb, and after that he never stopped his secret ache of hope.

Even though Jena didn’t look at him today, it was still a good day. Last night Daddy hadn’t yelled. Troy had slept well and in his own bed. There’d been new cereal for breakfast. Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries still stuck to the tops of his teeth. And he had lunch money. Mama had put a quarter in his shoe before she left for work.

Troy hopped onto the handrail, slid down, and walked into the sea of white kids. Troy! Take over for me at second base, Vincent Taylor called, as he moved to the outfield.

Troy grinned. He shed his brown coat onto the pavement and walked out onto the field: his field, their field. Whenever he was here, he felt like he was right where he was supposed to be. The morning kickball game was a place where he and Kamal not only belonged but ruled.

This morning the excitement was not only about kickball, however. All the boys felt it and none of them said it. It was about love: feverish, queasy, heart-thumping love. The second grade girls, led by Jill Merrill, were in their third day of chasing the boys.

Oh, to be chased, thought Troy as he took his position at second base. To be chased, and caught, and kissed, and pretend to hate it.

No one had ever kissed him except his mama. And the babysitter when he was five, but those times he tried hard to forget about. But so far Jill and her gang had passed Troy by. They chose three or four boys to chase each recess, and so far never Troy. Maybe today they would chase him. Maybe today Jena would!

Jena and Jill were best friends. Troy looked over to where Jena stood near the doors, now holding one end of the yellow rope while Jill jumped. She was so pretty. So pretty.

At least he got to watch it happen to Kamal. Kamal was Jill’s number one chasing target. And even if it never happened to him, at least he got to hope and dream about it. He sighed, put his hands on his thighs, and looked to home plate.

Slow and smooth! yelled the next kicker.

The pitcher rolled the ball. The kicker ran. He kicked.

Thump!

The red rubber ball flew in a line straight to second base. Troy jumped up and it slammed into his chest. He wrapped his arms around it and held on, closed his eyes, and relished the sting over his heart. Yes!

He’s out! everyone yelled.

***

At morning recess the girls chased and kissed Kamal and Carl, who came back to Mrs. Parsons’s room wiping their faces with brown paper towels from the boys’ room and grimacing.

Ew! Germs! Carl exclaimed triumphantly as he went to his seat.

As the morning wore on, the tingling excitement grew throughout the classroom and climbed up Troy’s spine. Long recess lasted an hour. Would he get chased? He couldn’t keep still or concentrate on much of anything Mrs. Parsons had to say. Finally the lunch bell rang.

Bright sunshine streamed into the basement lunchroom through the bank of upper windows and splashed across rows of tables and stools. Troy inhaled the mouthwatering scent of food as he joined the lunch line: aromas of shiny-topped rolls, mashed potatoes, meat in sauce, heated silver pans of mushy green beans, and the rectangular tray of raspberry crisp just out of the oven. The air filled with the laughing and shouting of kids excited to soon be going outside.

Troy pulled the quarter from his pocket and handed it to the net-haired lunch lady: the quarter that had freed him from making his own peanut butter and jelly again. He hadn’t seen Mama last night, but he’d heard her come in, along with a lot of other noise and commotion out in the living room, people talking loud. At some point Mama must have snuck into the bedroom and put the quarter in his shoe.

You should be grateful! he could still hear Mama say, on a different morning. That you get to go to Maple Leaf instead of Colman School. And you better be good over there. If I ever hear you making trouble again, the heck with Principal Shelton and his paddle. I’ll come there and whoop your ass myself! Then she’d popped a cough drop in her mouth and headed off in her green nursing assistant’s uniform, screen door slamming behind her.

Troy knew no school other than Maple Leaf except daycare in the projects which didn’t count as school. He’d never experienced Colman School like his older brothers. The buses had started running just before he turned five.

He reached the end of the serving line, added a chocolate milk to his tray, and went to sit with Kamal.

To get to where Kamal was sitting he had to get past Cynthia Hallowell, the weirdest girl in the class. She sat alone as always, empty seats all around her, near the end of one of the tables. As he approached, she held her curly orange head high and chewed on a baloney sandwich. When she saw him, she smiled and scooted in. My goodness, Troy, she said. I’m in your way. Let me get myself out of this aisle.

You’re all right, Cynthia, he said. He breathed out as he passed her in order to not inhale her stink.

He ate his raspberry crisp first. Then he started on his meat and sauce. As he finished his mashed potatoes, Jill Merrill and her gang stood up two tables away. Jill, tall and confident in her short blonde hair, balanced her tray on one hand as she led the way to the scrape station. Jena, Leann, and Alison followed her in a line. As they passed the table where Troy and Kamal sat, Jill looked over and smirked, her eyes lingering on Kamal. Troy watched Jena come up behind Jill and hoped she would look at him, but Jena kept her eyes looking straight ahead.

The girls passed by again on their way to the door. Before turning down the hallway to the playground, Jill stopped and looked across the lunchroom at Kamal again. She smirked again. Then they were gone.

Coast is clear, Kamal said as they stood up with their trays. Clear for him, thought Troy. He’d seen Jill’s desktop on his way out of the classroom, seen her pencil-drawn tally. Kamal’s name had five checkmarks next to it and space for a sixth.

They went to scrape their trays.

I got ten cent, said Kamal, digging into his pocket. I’ll get us an ice cream.

The ice cream station was run by a sixth grader. Kamal and Troy had no question which one to choose and didn’t need to discuss it: a strawberry Cap’n Crunch bar. They took turns eating bites as they headed out of the lunchroom.

Let’s go out through the boys’ room, said Kamal.

They went straight down the hallway instead of turning. Going through the boys’ room would get them outside into the courtyard between the building and the portables, where it would be harder for the girls to find them. From there they could sneak between the portables and run across the upper field to the climber. After that, they could escape to the grassy lower field if they saw the girls coming.

They pushed into the boys’ room and headed past the three urinals, the last one hissing and running nonstop. The harsh perfume of urinal cakes rose up from the half-dissolved yellow blobs in the drains to mix with the stench of piss itself, an odor ever present because the wall above the urinals sloped backwards. Some boys including Troy liked to make their pee go up there. If you pointed your wiener and pressed real hard you could shoot a piss rocket up onto the slanted wall and watch it make a waterfall down into the urinals.

Wait, said Kamal when they reached the door at the other end. He held the ice cream stick in one hand and pushed the frosted window pane on the door to make it open a crack. Squinting, he opened it a little wider. Okay, let’s go.

Some first graders were playing foursquare, and two second grade non-chaser girls were dueling at the tetherball pole. Salini Subramanium had just smacked the chained ball straight toward Sarah Bryan’s face, who had ducked just in time. Wow, thought Troy. That would have been blood everywhere. Vincent Taylor stood on the sidelines with his hands in his pockets. He looked like he was waiting to play the winner. His eyes lit up when he saw Troy and Kamal.

Watch out! Vincent called with a smile. The girls were just here! They went to the kickball field.

Kamal nodded, took the next-to-last bite of ice cream, and handed the stick to Troy. Troy got the last bite as it fell off. They crossed the courtyard and edged around Mrs. Carlson’s third grade portable. Kamal, in front, peeked around the next corner.

There you are! shouted a voice. It was Jill.

The chase was on!

Kamal ran straight across the cement field. Troy dropped the ice cream stick and ran too, on a slant away from Kamal. He figured it was better to run in a different direction since he probably wasn’t being chased. That way it wouldn’t look weird that no one was trying to catch him.

As he ran, the soles of his brown Hush Puppies slapped the pavement. But that wasn’t the only sound he heard. There were other feet behind him, and breaths mixed with giggles. Someone was chasing him! He was getting chased!

He lowered his head and ran faster.

As he ran, his thoughts shifted. What was he supposed to do now? Keep running? How far? All the way to Lake Washington?

Troy ran as fast as he could toward the edge of the playground, to where it dropped down in grass to the lower field. The breaths and laughs behind him grew louder. She was gaining on him! He set his eyes on the green edge of the field and prepared to launch.

I’ll roll part way down, and then lie there and keep still and see what happens.

At the edge of the field, he leapt. He rolled twice and stopped, and found himself spread on his back in the steep grass.

Nothing happened.

Then: whump!

A girl in a red and black plaid dress landed on top of him, sideways across his belly, knocking out what little breath he had. She sat up on top of him.

I GOT you! Jena Green yelled, laughing between her heaves of breath. She put her hands on his shoulders and pressed him into the grass, and smiled and breathed into his face.

He froze in terror.

Terror of her…sweet, sweet breath?

She leaned forward and kissed him. A peck on the side of his face.

He stared at her. She was breathing hard and laughing, rising and falling on his stomach. She closed her eyes and leaned forward again.

He shut his eyes. Her lips pressed against his and stayed there a while. Her ponytail fell down around his neck and tickled his ear.

He kept his eyes shut. He felt her draw back. Then the pressure on his arms released and her weight lifted off his stomach. He heard her giggles, her hands brushing grass off her dress and stockings, and the swish of her shoes as she started to climb back up the hill.

I GOT you! she sang, her voice receding in the distance.

Troy remained on his back with his arms outstretched and his eyes closed. The sun came out from behind a cloud and lit up his eyelids, and warmed his smile. He sank farther into the grass and his whole body buzzed from head to toe.

I could stay here just like this forever, he told himself. Or until the bell at least. Then a little bit longer.

A fly, or maybe a bee, hummed near his ear.

And he knew.

No matter what happened after this, no matter what happened in his life, at least he had this. This feeling, this moment, to keep safe.

He could return here over and over, in his mind, whenever he wanted to, whenever things were going bad and he didn’t know what to do.

He pressed his eyes tighter shut and ran his tongue over his lips.

This was it.

This was his secret place.

1.2

LONG BEFORE THE GIRLS CHASED the boys and the boys pretended to hate it, Vincent Taylor had been in love.

Smack!

He reached the tetherball court just as Salini Subramanium sent the chained ball flying. It almost hit Sarah Bryan in the face. That would have been blood everywhere.

I play winner, he said.

He sighed, and thrust his hands into his pockets. Oh to be chased, he thought. And kissed. He wanted it so bad.

Vincent had always liked girls even though he wasn’t supposed to. He had secretly loved a different girl every year, but had only kissed one. That was Michelle in kindergarten, back before he found out that he was supposed to hate girls. Many times in the playground he chased her and kissed her. It was nice. Smushy and sucking and strange tasting , but nice.

His current secret love, Paula Cole, was not a chaser. But Jena Green was, and he’d loved Jena too, for years as a secondary backup love who he figured he might marry someday. Oh, to be chased, and kissed, by Jena. Vincent’s head went dizzy at the thought of it and his chest tightened.

He’d already walked through the playground and tried his best to look like a good person to chase. But no girl had chased him. When Jill and her gang came back from searching for Kamal behind the portables, they walked past him and ignored him.

He pushed his hands harder into his pockets and sighed again. He wasn’t good enough.

But he was making progress. This year he was getting gooder. For example, he was smart in class now instead of stupid. And thank goodness Paula Cole was a new student this year and hadn’t been at Maple Leaf last year, in first grade, and seen what happened. The memory of it still hurt Vincent worse than a punch in the stomach.

In first grade he’d had Mrs. Van Cleef in a split second and first grade classroom. Mrs. Van Cleef’s hair was dark, not white like most of the other teachers, and she was mean and her class was confusing. And she never gave permission for anyone to go to the bathroom.

Vincent’s desk had been in the back of the classroom. Leslie Schroeder sat across the aisle from him and one seat forward. Leslie was in second grade, and she was the prettiest girl in the class and everyone knew it. All the boys pretended very hard not to like her and tried hard to get her to like them.

Like the rest, Vincent tried hard to get Leslie to like him. And then one day, sometime after Thanksgiving, she began to turn in her seat and look at him. Him! A first grader. He couldn’t believe it. How he had accomplished this he never understood. But he and Leslie went on to spend hours looking at each other, day after day. It was true love. Vincent was still stupid in class but that didn’t matter, school had become his paradise. Never before had he felt so good about himself.

Then one day he had to pee. Bad. He didn’t bother to ask Mrs. Van Cleef because she didn’t like him and she’d only get mad and say no. So he sat, in pain, and watched the big minute hand of the clock. Oh god it hurt!

Then, disaster.

Leslie’s back was turned when it happened. His pee broke through and his Wranglers jeans turned dark blue. A warm puddle filled up his seat, spilled over the edge, and ran down the chair legs to drip noisily onto the floor, where it spread out into a yellow lake.

Leslie was the first one to see, the next time she turned around to gaze at him in love. Her eyes went wide and she lifted her hand to her mouth.

Vincent! Mrs. Van Cleef’s sharp voice rang out.

Everyone turned. And everyone laughed. Like thunder.

Except Leslie. She didn’t laugh. Not out loud at least. She kept her hand over her mouth and her whole body shook. But beneath her hand Vincent knew she was laughing too.

He also knew that their love affair was over. Over. This unbelievable feeling that he’d dreamed of, worked for, and built up over so many months, this queasy amazing buzzing and tingling that had filled his days and nights with happiness was over.

So was his life.

As laughter roared through the classroom, he tried to figure out what to do. He needed to get up and run out the door! Down the street and home! Forever. Never come back to this school again!

But Lanie came with dry pants and made him stay.

Lanie…Mommy…Lanie.

Vincent didn’t cry, at first. He waited until later in the day when he could make sure no one was looking. It was in the afternoon, in the dark when the lights were off for the Channel Nine music program on the black and white TV in the front of the room. He put his face down on his desk and he cried.

He didn’t know how, but somehow he made it through that day, and the next, and the next, and he finished first grade. And then, after summer, people started to forget. And when school started again he had Mrs. Parsons, who was a silver haired angel who laughed a lot and gave out popcorn when you got the right answer. Best of all, she liked Vincent, and she respected him, and he’d begun to be smart in class. Almost the smartest. His desk was right up front next to Salini Subramaniam’s. Even better than that, Vincent had started to make some friends. He was starting to get liked by boys, cool boys like Kamal Torrey and Troy Dove.

The tetherball circled the pole and Salini jumped up and smacked it again, her waist-length braids flying. As she hit the ball, Vincent watched Kamal and Troy come out of the boys’ room. His heart leapt in gladness. They were probably hiding from the girls, and this was his chance to help them!

Watch out! he called. The girls were just here! They went to the kickball field.

Kamal nodded and took a bite of the Cap’n Crunch bar he was holding. He handed the stick to Troy.

I will buy a Cap’n Crunch bar tomorrow, Vincent told himself. And I will share it with Troy.

He watched Troy and Kamal sneak around the corner of Mrs. Carlson’s portable, and then followed them. The heck with tetherball.

There you are! he heard Jill’s voice yell.

Troy and Kamal took off running.

Vincent ran too.

When he rounded the next corner, he saw that Kamal was running straight ahead, chased by Jill, and Troy running on a slant, chased by…Jena?

Jena was chasing Troy?

Vincent kept running, after Jena after Troy. Halfway across the playground his breath got stuck and he gave up, which didn’t matter because they were way ahead of him and both were faster runners. As he walked through the middle of the playground with his breaths heaving, he realized he’d been lucky that nobody had noticed the boy chasing the girl chasing the boy.

He walked to the edge of the concrete upper field and jumped up onto the climber. Mike Saito had just vacated the top spot, so Vincent hoisted himself up into this crow’s nest. From there he could see over the edge and down the grassy slope.

There sat Jena, on Troy’s stomach.

She leaned forward and kissed him.

Vincent gripped the bars of the climber.

He didn’t know which he wanted more: for Jena to love him, or for Troy to like him.

My birthday, he said to himself, firming his jaw and nodding. I will tell Lanie. That I want Troy to come to my birthday.

Part Two: 1974

2.1

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

March

DOLORES MOFFAT ADJUSTED HER position in the wooden pew of Saint Augustine’s Lutheran Church. Her left butt cheek had gone numb. The seats were hard and uncomfortable, but a small price to pay for redemption. She was nearly fifteen years old and she needed to get back on track with becoming a good person. Today, Sunday, she’d get it restarted.

As she shifted in her seat and tried to hold in a fart, her right shoulder rubbed against her kid sister Mary Kate. Farther down the pew sat their parents, along with her four older brothers and older sister.

And two rows ahead sat Chandler Simpson, gorgeous, broad-shouldered, glowing. He’d arrived late to the service and, as he slid into his pew, smiled and winked at Dolores. She’d smiled back and felt herself melt. And then she’d wanted to smack herself for all the bad thoughts running through her head, like wanting his tongue in her mouth.

No matter what Dolores did, she couldn’t stop sinning.

At least she hadn’t farted. Now she sat rigid in the pew and glued her eyes onto Pastor Meyer.

We humans are created in the image of God, yes, he said. That is one important aspect. The other is that we are sinful.

Mary Kate nudged Dolores with her knee and smirked. They’d snitched a cigarette from Mother’s pack on her dresser and smoked it behind the tool shed before coming to church.

Our total depravity is founded by the original sin of Adam in the Garden of Eden. In Adam, all of us died. We were all sinners before we became conscious. Shaped by wickedness, we were sinners when conceived.

Dolores leaned forward and peered down the row at her parents, who sat erect and serene in their pew. They looked great. Mother had just gotten her hair fixed and tinted auburn. She wore a lime green dress. Father’s big bald head glistened in the nave light and he looked very much the distinguished medical school dean, barrel-chested in his dark blue suit.

But, what the h—? she asked herself. What had Pastor Meyer just said?

Sinners when conceived, Pastor Meyer repeated.

A strange pressure arose in Dolores’s chest. She looked again at her parents.

Father caught her eyes and lifted his huge brow. Mother dabbed a Kleenex to the tip of her nose and tucked it away in her breast pocket. Dolores shifted in her seat, looked forward, and tried to ward off all impending images of her parents having sex.

Lime green dress. Dark blue suit. Sperm meets egg. Sin begets sin. Yes, sin begets sin! And to even question it’s a sin is a sin!

Really?

Deep in our souls, at birth, in the core of our beings, we came into this world already in a bad place, Pastor Meyer intoned. We are born dead in our sin.

Yes. Dolores had heard this all before, a thousand times. Yes! She was bad. Bad from before the beginning. Bad before she dropped her bottle, bad before she pooped in her diaper.

Why did this now sound so outrageous?

The pressure increased in her chest. Her forehead tingled. She closed her eyes.

Pastor Meyer’s voice continued. But wasn’t there good mixed with the evil? Was there no light intermingling with the darkness? The answer is no. None whatsoever. ‘God saw that the whole imagination of the heart of man was evil.’

A baby let out a cry in the pew behind. Dolores swung her head to see an infant boy, held in his mother’s arms. The mother quickly adjusted his pacifier and patted his back. Next to her, a little girl of about six years sat rigid with her eyes transfixed on the pastor.

We are born without hope, without God. We are children of wrath.

Dolores spun back around. That…is not true!

In fact, we sin whenever we pursue the vain and illusory effort to establish our own lives on an independent and secure basis.

Come again? Dolores blinked and swallowed. The pressure welled up and burned in her throat like a hot ball of vomit. She wanted to puke, and then shout.

We have to be reoriented by God. Given character by God. We cannot do it ourselves. There is no human way. Without a Savior, all that any of us can do is sin.

Liar! she nearly yelled. She gripped the top of the pew in front of her and started to stand up. This was a sham! This whole thing was a sham. She needed to get out of here. Get away from here.

But…wait a second. Where would she go?

A hand touched