Love by Toni Morrison

tight to the shoes he handed her. If either had been drunk earlier, they weren’t anymore. A cold wind took their breath away.
    He thought her name was Faye or Faith and was about to say something when suddenly he couldn’t stand the sight of her. If she thanked him, he would strangle her. Fortunately, she didn’t say a word. Eyes frozen wide, she put on her shoes and straightened her skirt. Both of their coats, his new leather jacket and whatever she had worn, were inside the house.
    The door opened; two girls ran out, one carrying a coat, the other holding up a purse.
    “Pretty-Fay! What happened?”
    Romen turned to go.
    “What happened to you, girl? Hey, you! You do something to her?”
    Romen kept walking.
    “Come back here! He bother you? Well, who? Who? Look at your hair! Here, put your coat on. Pretty-Fay! Say something, girl!”
    He heard their shrieks, their concern, as cymbal clashes, stressing, but not competing with, the trumpet blast of what Theo had called him: the worst name there was; the one word whose reverberation, once airborne, only a fired gun could end. Otherwise there was no end—ever.
    For the past three days he had been a joke. His easily won friendship—four months old now—lost. Holding the stare of any one of the six others, except for Freddie, was a dare, an invitation, and even when he didn’t stare back or meet their eyes at all, the trumpet spoke his name. They gathered without him at the link fence; left the booth at Patty’s Burgers when he sat down. Even the flirtiest girls sensed his undesirability, as though all at once his clothes were jive: T-shirt too white, pants too pressed; sneakers laced all wrong.
    On the first day following the party, nobody refused him court time but he never got a pass and when he intercepted he had to try for a dunk wherever his position because there was no one to receive the ball. They dropped their hands and looked at him. If he made a rebound they fouled it away from him and the trumpet spat before he could see who blew it. Finally they just tripped him and walked off the court. Romen sat there, panting, eager to fight but knowing that if he answered the fouls, the tripping, the trumpet spit, it would be the same as defending the girl again. Somebody he didn’t know and didn’t want to. If he fought back, he would be fighting not for himself, but for her, Pretty-Fay; proving the connection between them—the wrong connection. As though he
and
her had been tied to a bed; his legs
and
hers forced open.
    Lucas Breen, one of the white boys whose hoop skill was envied, dribbled and shot all alone at the far end of the court. Romen got up and started to join him, but realized in time that there was another word in the trumpet’s repertoire. He passed Lucas with a glance, muttering, “Hey.”
    The second day was miserable, lonelier. Freddie brought him the jacket he’d left and said, “Hey, man. Don’t get shook,” but didn’t hang around to say more. After he saw Pretty-Fay’s friends, the two who had come running out with her coat and purse, waving at him through the window of the school bus, he began to ride the commuter bus. Readily he chose the inconvenience of walking two miles to and from the stop to avoid the possibility of seeing Pretty-Fay herself. He never did. Nor did anyone else.
    The third day they beat him up. All six, including Freddie. Smart, too. They hit him everywhere except his face, just in case he was a snitch as well, happy to explain a broken mouth or swollen eye; girl enough to point a weak finger at them if questioned. All six. Romen fought well; raised a lump or two, kneed deep into a groin, tore a shirt till they got his hands behind his back and tried to break his ribs and empty his stomach at the same time. That last was starting to happen when a car drove up and honked. Everybody scattered, including Romen, who stumbled away holding his stomach, more fearful of being rescued than of passing out with vomit on