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ain’t that hungry.” Then I spin out the kitchen and toward the apartment door.
    Ma chases after me with the cupones. She even grabs at my arm and tries to stuff them in my hand. I elbow her off me and open the door. “After you add up the dollars and hours, come back to me. Then we can talk about how much is a fair amount for you to pay me to be your mother, since welfare is not enough.” I rush out and through the closed door she yells her usual threats. “One of these days te voy a dar un pescozá if you keep being disrespectful!”
    I take the side streets to Moncho’s shop. Used to be this was too early for Junior and his crew to be out there hustling. Nowadays, dealers and crackheads hit the street as soon as the sun comes up, searching for each other like star-crossed kids at some twisted prom.
    As I walk past the supermarket, I peek into the window, and there’s Blue Eyes at a register, staring at her nails. One time, after we were done getting busy at her place, Blue Eyes told me that her older sister Sandy got knocked up on purpose, hoping that welfare would open her own case so she could move out of their mother’s apartment. That’s when I knew I had to quit Blue Eyes before she trapped me, too.
    Moncho’s in the barbershop alone. “What’s up, Monch!” I slap him five.
    “Hey, Willie!”
    “Nike.” I point to my cap before taking it off. “Can’t rap to some biddy with this nest on my head. Cut it close but leave the tail.”
    Moncho makes a face. “You homeboys wear your hair too damn long.” He reaches for an apron and flaps it open. “Tails, cornrows, Jheri curls…all that’s for girls.”
    “You too ol’-school, Monch.” He’s also a businessman. Moncho’ll do any style you ask irregardless and do it right.
    “Want I should use the razor?”
    “What the hell.” It’s getting hot, and it ain’t like it won’t grow back like weeds. I sit in his chair, and he ties the apron around my neck.
    “Came at the right time. In an hour this place is gonna get packed,” says Moncho. “Everyone wants to get fly for the holiday.”
    “Word.” Every year Smiles and I head downtown to watch the Macy’s fireworks. When he decided to go to Dawkins, I thought for sure he’d dis me for some rich kid’s cookout in the Hamptons, wherever that is. So far Smiles hasn’t flaked on me. Yet.
    I glance over at the bulletin board above the mirrors. Sure enough, there are at least five flyers for hip-hop concerts going down over the holiday. Maybe Smiles and I should skip the fireworks this year. “Yo, Moncho, let me see that flyer right there.” I point to the yellow one with a drawing of a b-boy spinning on his head. Moncho plucks down the flyer and hands it to me. At the T-Connection on White Plains Road tomorrow, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five are going to battle the Funky Four Plus One More. “This looks fresh.” Even though Smiles likes the harder sound of that new group Run-D.M.C., I bet he’d gladly drop six bucks—only five with the flyer—to watch these crews rhyme. “Can I keep this?”
    “Llévatelo,” Moncho says as he takes his electric razor to my scalp. The vibration against my head feels like a massage, and I imagine that the clumps of hair falling to the linoleum are shedding my problems with them. “I’ve got a magazine back there I’ve been keeping for you, too. They got an article ’bout that place downtown you like to go to.”
    “The Roxy?” I haven’t been there since I broke up with Vanessa after she made such a scene. Got to let enough time pass before I show my face there again.
    “Eso es.” With most of my hair gone, Moncho puts down his razor and pulls out his shears. “Those Rock Steady guys are getting famous.”
    “They were in that movie
Flashdance.
” My stomach kicks with jealousy. “Blink and you missed ’em, ’cause the movie’s about the girl dancer anyways.”
    “I be seeing you dancing out there.” Moncho snips around my