Read When I Was the Greatest for Free Online Page B

that our neighborhood is like one big bubble of gossip. It’s the telephone game we all played in elementary school, except not a game. Noodles tells a group of little kids playing in the hydrant about some stunt he pulled. One of those kids goes home and tells his mother about the crazy story Noodlestold him. The mother tells her next-door neighbor, who tells another neighbor and another, the story changing, becoming worse and worse, until it finally, almost always, makes it to Doris Brooks.
    â€œSo, I heard a few days ago Noodles busted up in some shop, slapped a couple of old ladies around, took a whole bunch of stuff, and took off running. Heard the cops chased him and everything.” My mother’s voice was coming from her room. She was changing her clothes, getting ready to go to her second job. I was in the living room practicing my right jab–left hook combo in front of a full-length mirror I took from her room. “You know anything about that, son?” she said in that weird way that means I’m already in trouble.
    My left hook went limp. It seemed like all of a sudden the sweat started to roll, and my stomach tightened up with nerves. She knew I was with him. I was always with him, ever since I met him. My best bet was to just tell the truth, but explain everything in a way that would keep me out of trouble.
    â€œIt wasn’t all like that. No cops or slapping people or none of that extra stuff. Plus, I left the money on the counter,” I said with fake confidence, still bouncing on my toes, with my guard up.
    â€œBut he tried to steal whatever it was?” she asked from down the hall.
    â€œYes,” I replied reluctantly, feeling like I was snitching on my dude, but my mom had a way of getting the truth out of me. It mainly had to do with that cold look she always gave.
    Surprisingly, she didn’t get too upset about it. She came into the living room so she could see me. You know, look me in the eyes to see if I was being honest. She just stared at me for a second, sizing me up, probably thinking about whether she wanted to yell at me or not. Then she smirked and shook her head, bumping me out of the way so she could see herself in the mirror. She told me that she knew Noodles was my friend and that I was trying to look out for him. Then she said she would tell me not to hang with him because he’s trouble, but that she knew it would do no good because she knew I would kick it with him anyway while she’s at work. She told me she’d be kidding herself to think otherwise, and that she understood what it was like to be a loyal friend, and that she had bailed my father out time and time again the same way, until she just couldn’t do it anymore. She said that when I got to the point when I couldn’t do it anymore, when I couldn’t take Noodles’s foolishness anymore, I’d know it.
    â€œAnd what exactly was that knucklehead stealing anyway?” she asked.
    â€œYarn. That part of the story is true,” I explained, wiping sweat from my forehead. “We were at a yarn store. He was taking black yarn. For Needles.”
    She smiled, and I think she was trying to hold in a giggle. I could tell she couldn’t believe it. Then she turned and walked back to her room. On the way she preached, “You know your father started off snatching small stuff too. And even though he said it was harmless, and that he was doing it for me, it didn’t make a difference at the end of the day, because wrongis wrong. I know this story too well, Ali.” She paused and then added with a sigh, “Too damn well.”
    It’s like I could hear her shaking her head.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    About my father. He’s really not a bad guy. That’s one thing my mother was sure that me and Jazz understood. He’s actually a pretty good dude who just made some messed-up decisions. He wasn’t into no drugs or nothing like that. And he also