Ghost Pine by Jeff Miller

Author:Jeff Miller [Miller, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Invisible Publishing
Published: 2010-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

[OMAR]

Walking down the hall the day before the meeting, I saw the one person I hadn’t yet tried to recruit for the club. Leaning against a wall in the school foyer he was holding court, surrounded by his dour-looking homeboys and four giggling girls.

I waved and in a minute he came over to talk to me.

“Jeff man! What’s happening?”

I told him, but he had to decline. “United Colours of Merivale meets tomorrow at lunch, yo,” he came in close and whispered in my ear. “We’re doing a fashion show this year. You should get in on this club, it’s where all the fly honeys are at!”

“Damn,” I said.

“You know!” he slapped my back. “That’s my boy-ee!”

Tipping the scales at well over two hundred and fifty pounds and with a face of acne and wire rim glasses, one would think Omar would have some major liabilities in the universe of teen popularity. Despite these potential setbacks he played on the football team and was always sweet-talking young ladies.

He was born in Bethlehem (“Like Jesus!” he’d say with a smile) but always identified himself as Lebanese. While the school’s large pan-Arabic student body were referred to by the racial epithet “Leb” by their detractors, Omar spun the term around, often proclaiming “I’m Leb and proud!” in conversation.

He made teachers uneasy. Some believed him to be the kingpin of a Lebanese gang, but I never thought that he could be into any dirty business.

But there was that one day at lunch when I saw him looking upset in the hall and asked him what the matter was. His reply was “There’s this rumour that me and some of my boys are going to roll up on Laurentian High in a white minivan with some gats to take out some suckas.”

I mumbled my condolences, unsure of what to say. High school is the centre of the most scurrilous libel. Someone can joke about having a water gun and wanting to spray a teacher at lunch and the next thing the cops are breaking open his locker. Broken telephone is some dangerous shit.

“Yo! I know. A white minivan? Who the fuck do they think I am? I ain’t driving no white minivan.” He shook his head and then said “I gotta get outta here!”

I met Omar in Drama class the year before. On the first day we played a game where a student picked a famous person and then everyone else had to ask questions and guess who it was. Omar’s celebrity pick stymied the class until we eventually gave up. “Who is it, Omar?” Mrs. Ruby asked.

With his trademark wide smile, Omar said, “It’s my hero, missus. Biggie Smalls, the Notorious B. I. G.!”

While the class argued that they had never heard of Bed-Stuy’s finest, whose first album had only just been released, one of Omar’s friends called “BUP BUP!” in appreciation.

His friends wore their shirts tucked in and hair slicked back.

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