Long Division by Kiese Laymon

“But you can call me T-Ron if you want.” I never told white folks or strangers my real name. But usually I alternated between Bobby, Ronnie, Ricky, and Mike, the names of the dudes in New Edition.
    The girl rolled her eyes, then opened up her little briefcase and sat back down. “Okay T-Ron, my name’s Baize. Baize Shephard,” she said before moving the book and opening up the tiny silver briefcase. “Look, mayne, I don’t mind you being on my porch, but you gotta quit looking thirsty like you wanna steal somebody’s rhymes.”
    “Rhymes? What kind of rhymes? Girl, what’s wrong with you? Why you keep calling me ‘mayne’?”
    “That’s what we say.”
    “Who? How do you even spell that?” I asked her. “Just be yourself.”
    “You don’t even know me,” the girl said. “And I don’t know you either. Mayne! But I know how you look. And you look like the type to wanna steal somebody’s rhymes off their computer. Can I keep it one hundred?”
    “I guess so. What does ‘keep it one hundred’ even mean?”
    “One hundred. Like 100 percent. Listen, if you don’t want me to think you jack people, then don’t call yourself T-Ron. That can’t be your real name,” she said.
    “Wait—that’s a computer?” I asked her.
    “Yeah, what else would it be?”
    “I thought it was a silver briefcase. Whatever it is, that thing is cold as a mug.”
    “A briefcase?”
    “Yeah, for children.”
    She laughed loud and hard. “You trying to spit game?” she asked me. “What does that even mean? Show me a child who uses briefcases. I know you’ve heard of a laptop computer.”
    “A lab top computer?”
    “Lap. Lap , mayne. See,” she picked the computer up, held it in the air for a moment, and then placed it back on her lap. “This is a computer and this, see this? This is my lap. Stop fronting. Why you playing stupid? You go to school around here, don’t you?”
    “Um, yeah.”
    “Then you must’ve gotten one a few years ago with the last of that Katrina money they sent us after all them tornadoes hit us again. Don’t tell me your mama and them sold it on eBay? I was watching this web series, Confessions of a PTSD . You heard of it?”
    I looked at the book where she’d moved it. I could really see its cover for the first time. On the cover was a husky black boy’s body standing in the middle of a stage. The picture cut off right above his shoulder blades so we couldn’t see his face. His left hand was in his pocket and his right hand was clutching a wave brush. Behind the boy was another, lankier boy with his head down and both of his balled-up fists dangling between his legs. Near the bottom of the cover were the words “YouTube,” “views,” and the number “47,197,508.” At the top of the cover in bold letters were the words “Long Division.”
    I was thinking of what to ask her about the book when I heard a man’s voice in conversation behind me. I turned to the road as a taller man with a big brown T-shirt was walking down the street talking to himself.
    “How come everyone around here likes to talk to themselves?”
    “He’s on the phone,” the girl said. “Why you trippin’?”
    “I ain’t slow. I can see he’s talking to himself.”
    “Look, you ain’t gonna get loud with me on my own porch. You know that’s Bluetooth. I know it’s played out. They think they styling with the little headsets, just like you think you think you styling with that outfit,” she paused, “and that curly shag. Where you from?”
    I looked across Old Ryle Road at Shalaya Crump and motioned for her to come on over. “My friend is over in those woods and I want her to see all this. Is it okay if she comes over and sees Katrina’s computer?”
    “No,” she said. “Why didn’t she come with you?”
    “No?”
    “Your ‘friend,’” she made these quotations marks in the air, “is a girl, right?”
    “Unh huh!”
    “She’s your girl, right?” “Um, she halfway my