CHAPTER IX

DING

“Hey, boy!”

I turned quickly with my fists balled up, ready to fight. The voice was not one that was familiar to me. “You gone swing on me lil nigga?” The man said. “You gone swing on old Ding? Don’t you know who I am? I’m ‘Ding’, nigga, I’ll knock yo lil ass out.” He began to dance around me, throwing punches, and jabbing at the air. His punches were fast and came in combinations. He weaved and bobbed, ducking, and punching. His boxing agility was impressive, but his personal appearance looked like shit. His hair was nappy with lint and paper in it. His face was dirty with noticeable cuts and bruises; his teeth were yellow, black, missing, and rotten. His breath was toxic, and he smelled like nine bags of cat shit. He wore a pair of dirty blue jeans, some holey black dress shoes, which did not match—just two different black shoes—and a nasty T-shirt that may have been white once upon a time.

“Oh!” He said, noticing my sneer. “You like the rest of them sidity folks; you want to look down on old Ding. Well, let me tell you something boy, I use to be a “Boss Nigga” back in the day. Yeah, old Ding had it all: nice clothes, the finest women, and the prettiest Cadillac cars you have ever seen. Yeah, I did and lots of people looked up to me, even white folks kissed my ass.” His eyes began glistening. “I was one of the greatest fighters to ever come out of the East Side of Detroit. I made a whole lot of people rich; people loved me, they use to chant my name—Ding! Ding! Ding! And, I always delivered. I’ll knock a mother-fucker out in the first round, let him sleep a couple of rounds, then wake his punk ass up, and knock him out again. I once knocked a nigga out and before he hit the canvas; I was knocking his woman out, Hee! Hee! Hee!” He laughed believing his own hype.

I looked at him and said, “Well, if you were so great, what happened to you?”

His entire demeanor changed, and he went from smiling and reliving his glory days to a stern, gruff face.

“Don’t you worry about what happened to old Ding! What you need to worry about is what’s going to happen to your lil ass if you don’t learn how to fight.”

What did he mean? I knew how to fight, and I had to let him know.

“Shut up, lil nigga!” Ding snapped at me. “You don’t know shit! Yeah, you know how to throw some punches, but you don’t know how to fight. You ain’t got no ‘S.S.S.’.”

“S.S.S.? What the hell is that?” I said.

“Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up?!” He snapped at me. “That’s the problem with young folks nowadays. You don’t listen…if you shut up, I’ll tell you what ‘S.S.S.’ is.”

He proceeded to talk about all the great fighters that had S.S.S.—Jack Johnson had it, Sugar Ray Robinson had it, (the greatest heavyweight ever) the Brown Bomber Joe Louis had it, and Ding he knew he had it because he felt it before.

“Yeah, me and Joe use to go round for round,” Ding said. “The only reason he became champ was because he was one of them light skinned niggas with wavy hair. Yeah, the white folks loved him but me, I was blacker than a can of oil. Aw, the kids use to call me ‘Tar Baby’ when I was growing up, but they didn’t call me that after I became famous. Yeah, the same high yellow bitches who use to ignore me in school wanted some of this ‘Tar Baby’ when I became famous. I even gave a couple of them bitches some S.S.S. after I fucked the shit out of them. Yeah! Hee! Hee! Hee! They’ll remember this ‘Tar Baby’ as long as they live!”

He continued to ramble on and on and on. Finally, he said something that got my attention. “That lil nigga Smokey got S.S.S., that’s why he kicked your ass the other morning. Hee! Hee! Hee! You didn’t think I knew did you? Well, old Ding didn’t get this far without listening to the drum beats in the streets. Yeah, I may not know my books, but I know these damn streets, and these streets know me. “The sooner you learn what the streets demand, the better off you gonna be, you hear me? Now, do you want to know what S.S.S. is?”

Hell yeah, I want to know after you done made me listen to all your bullshit! I thought.

“S.S.S. is Snap!, Sting!, and Style. You ain’t got no Snap, no Sting, and no Style when you fight. Yeah, that’s right, you just like the rest of them niggas. You ain’t got no S.S.S…But, old Ding can show you a thang or two. You want to learn a thing or two little nigga, huh? Do you?”

I got quiet and thought for a minute. What in the world do I have to lose (besides another fight)?

“Yes, I’d like to learn a thing or two,” I replied.

He smiled, showing the few remaining teeth he had. “Well, young buck you gone have to do something for old Ding every now and then. You have to break me off a dollar or two when you hit a lick.”

I smiled and wondered how he knew about my hustle. Then, I remember he listened to the jungle drum or however he said that bullshit. I agreed, and he began to dance a little jig.

“Oh, Ding is going to show you how to fuck up a whole lot of people. You gone be knocking out motherfuckas in your sleep when I get finish with you. Now, how much money you got on ya?”

I reached in my pocket and pulled out a dollar and gave it to him.

“Come on lil nigga I know you got mo than that, come on now, Ding gone set you straight for the rest of your life. I know you can come better than that. Ding need to get his head bad, so he can think right.”

What? What type of dumb logic was that? A person needs to get “high” in order to think right? This motherfucker is probably going to have me punching backwards. I thought about snatching my dollar out of his hand and take off running, but everybody in the neighborhood knew that dope fiends could run like nobody’s business especially when they are scared or just stole something.

“You ain’t showed me shit yet,” I said. “When you show me how to get that S.S.S., I’ll take good care of you. You meet me in the morning before you go to school and Ima show you a few things you’ll never learn in those books.

“Where?” I asked him.

“On the playground, next to the monkey bars.”

“Alright, but you better show up.” I threatened him.

“Hee! Hee! Hee!” He slapped his knee. “Hell, I’ll be there. I sleep on the bench next to the monkey bars!”

My first lesson with Ding was interesting, to say the least. It was obvious he had copped a score before the lesson. His demeanor was cool and calm. His voice was mellow, and his words were clear but low.

“Hey, my man! What’s shaking?”

“What?’” I thought. “No ‘little nigga’ today.”

“What’s cracking my little light fighter,” he said.

“You said to meet you here on the playground before school, and you were going to show me a few things.” I said.

“Man, why you wanna learn how to fight somebody? You need to be learning your books and having fun, shooting marbles, and chasing little girls. Fighting ain’t cool man, all that blood and pain ain’t Ding’s thang.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “Motherfucker you’re the one who bragged to me about how bad you were and how you could teach me how to fight with S.S.S. Now, you all high and shit talk-ing like a sissy with a dick in his mouth.” Before I realized it, I hauled off and punched him in his mouth. “I want my dollar back, you punk!”

Ding rocked back in that dope fiend lean, rubbed his lip, and looked at the blood on his hand. “Damn, man, you didn’t have to hit old Ding over a dollar. You done busted Ding’s lip. You got a nice punch for a boy, but if you swing on me again, I’m going to fuck you up, quick, fast, and in a hurry.”

I could see the change in his body language and the tone in his voice. I knew that change and so did every other street-wise person. You didn’t ever want to back a dope fiend into a corner. I looked at him closely, and for the first time, I didn’t see him as a dope fiend, but as a man who had lost his zest for life. A broken shell of the man he might have been years ago. A sudden fear came upon me. It dawned on me this could be me years from now. My heart fluttered as the thought was realistic and scary. I just turned and walked away leaving him to enjoy his short lived high. As I walked towards the school, I was wondering if I would need some of that S.S.S. today.